Documentary director Alex Winter has announced he will turn his attention to the life of iconic musician and artist Frank Zappa for his next project. Winter, who recently put together the critically acclaimed Silk Road doc Deep Web, has received approval and access from the Zappa Family Trust for the documentary which is due in 2017. You may remember Winter as the actor who portrayed Bill in the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Winter is firm in stating that the film he is putting together about Zappa is not a standard music doc or biopic, but instead “an epic saga of a great American artist and thinker; a major event worthy of the scope of Zappa’s prodigious and varied creative output, and the breadth of his personal and political life.” The filmmaker adds, “There has yet to be a definitive, authorized documentary on the extraordinary life and work of Frank Zappa. I am beyond thrilled to be embarking on this journey.”

The Zappa Family Trust has given Winter and partner Glen Zipper exclusive access to the Zappa Vault; a vast collection of unseen visual and audio recordings, in addition to previously released video clips, interviews and concert recordings, with Winter noting that “our tale will be told primarily in Frank’s own words; he will be our guide through this journey.”

"We couldn’t be happier to be working with Alex, an extraordinary filmmaker in his own wright. With an advanced degree in Perfect Timing and a shared respect for 'conceptual continuity,' we feel it is our duty. We also like his attitudinal position - Gravity and Humor go a long way with us,” Gail Zappa said.

Frank's son Ahmet Zappa added, “This is not an easy story to tell and we trust that Alex truly understands the complex and multi-faceted man that my father was.”

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Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

Hopefully similar to the Monty Python documentary and the Beatles Anthology which were both about six discs. Another hour and a half doc on Frank just wouldn't get it.

Exactly. The Chrome Dreams ones are doing a good job at looking at his albums and career but the releases sure take their time to come out. The last one Frank Zappa Freak Jazz, Movie Madness & Another Mothers is the best one yet. It only details 1969-1972 but it's a good three hours in length.

"Gail hopes the film will clear up misconceptions about Frank and silence so-called Frank experts who have opinions about his life but were not there. "There's all these people that wish to be associated with Frank, and they're all men, and they all hate me," she says. "Every single one despises me. Now I'm used to that, but I didn't set out to be competition for them in their exploration of their, what shall I say, 'fantasy relationship' with Frank Zappa." "

"Why the fuck would anyone want to be a composer?'" she says bluntly. "I know the answer to that, because I lived it. I just want it revealed somehow, somewhere, because people really don't understand what a composer is. And that will come through.... And I want to give the finger to all the 'experts' out there."

And the first magazine to misunderstand the whole thing, will, of course, be, Rolling Stone, with its quasi couch potato intelectuals, that Frank so loved to have fun with!

The answer to this question is easy ... it's what I see and it is what I do ... the hard part is using your early years to learn the very craft that will define you, and then, hopefully (and where most fail!) stick to it, like no one has a right to say anything, or criticise you for it.

The "experts" usually fall on the hands of those that define these things as a professor does ... sort of a road map that can be redone by anyone else ... but the problem is, it can not be duplicated, because it came from one person, not an idea, or a book ... and this is where we all lose sight of the idea of what an artist is.

in a commercial society, like the one we live in, no musician is considered a "composer", and they will never have the ability to gain that title, because of the sales, and the public and the media, and as such, the only thing these people can live for is their livelihood and whatever money they can score off it.

Now you can ask me, the same question about my dad ... who the fuck would want to be a writer? ... I can answer that, but even folks here have a hard time seeing what I am saying ... it has nothing to do with ideas and thoughts ... sometimes the whole thing is just a passing movie in your head, and you work hard (and get better at it as time goes by!), to figure out how to interpret it. Some days is comes out right handed and tomorrow it comes out left handed, and the next day you read the 27 pages you have and you wonder where is this all going, and how will it end ... and somewhere in the middle, you learn ... it doesn't matter! All that matters is that the movie in your head passes through and its now gone, over and done with, and as long as it is not over with, it will continue to "live" inside, until you learn to write it.

I often tell people, I do not write for you ... because I don't know how.

I can only write for what I see and understand. And it may have this and that and sexy and ugly and funny and stupid ... but it is what I saw and was able to word ... now ... on the outside ... is it good or bad? ... that is not for me to judge! ALL I CAN DO IS BE HONEST WITH MYSELF, and learn to describe that inner self ... the rest, you learn soon enough that is not worth it to discuss, or say anything about.

It's weird to see what this guy is saying about Frank ... because i think he is going to hit a massive BRICK WALL that will hurt the film, and then it will become just vignettes that do nto connect to anything, but talk about rock'n'roll completely out of context with anything and because it is out of context and different, we will think it is meaningful! What crock!

Reminds me, of a comment by Ken Kesey in that movie about their trip ... and towards the end, he makes a comment about the trip, that is so valuable and important ... and no one noticed it, said anything, or even took stock in it ... and it was the single most important comment about the whole thing ... passed right by, a whiff of a rose, a token of a fart ... completely oblivious to where it was and went ... and sadly wasted by anyone involved, because they didn't know any better, and they were just around for the trip ... nothing else mattered.

I wouldn't want the Zappa film to be just that.

Sadly, the important "glue" for all this, is Gail and she is not around anymore, and we could easily juice up a line or two that easily create a chapter or two for the whole thing ... and this will be missed, however, this allows for more freedom for the film maker, since I am not sure that Ahmet or Dweezil have as much interest or input into the whole thing as they think or would like to have. You have to allow Winter to do his thing first.

_________________The only art there is, resides within your heart. Have you listened to it lately to ensure that the top ten is better than you are?

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